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The day I ran away from home……..and what happened next

I ran away from home recently. Yep, like a petulant 14 year old teenager, I ran away from home. It was only a day but I literally downed tools after having enough of being treated like a housekeeper and I ran away. It’s wasn’t a nervous breakdown, it was simply that moment when a Mum says “enough!”. I didn’t get far, I went down to Sydney Harbour, took my laptop and wrote some funny stuff about something or other, went and had a coffee with a colleague and then ended up in the church where hubby and I got married. That was a bit random but it’s a place I like visiting from time to time for a bit of peace and quiet. It was BLISS.

Whilst I was out, I saw this status update appear in my Facebook Newsfeed

My fabulously observant 6 year old daughter had clearly decided to stick the knife in when I was away – GO GIRL!

When I returned home LATE that night, hubby (otherwise known as The Big Guy in this house) had been through 10 uninterrupted hours with the cherubs and through morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner so enough time to work out how much mess and washing they create during school holidays. Upon my return hubby said to me “I get it, I need to do more around the house and pay more attention to the housework”

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR.

What followed struck a chord with my inner skeptic when he said: “How about I do ALL the washing for the next 6 months? I don’t like the way you do the washing anyway as you have no system in place and I don’t feel like I can walk in and help as I don’t know where you are at with it all. I’ll do my washing and the kids and you can do your own because it’s all precious and fiddly and you always think I shrink your clothes”

Hmm….not sure about the back handed compliment as all I heard from that was “I’ll do the washing because you’re pretty shit at it”

Ok then sucker. I mean this is a guy whose man skills are renowned, he can use a hammer, fix a fence, hang shelves, change tyres and mow lawns whilst drinking a beer BUT he cannot see mess AND he can’t do anything in a hurry. Slow and steady wins the race with The Big Guy. As long as he can do his chores in his time on his schedule, he’s all over it. He literally doesn’t believe in time as a concept. If you ask the The Big Guy how long he’ll be on a work call, his 5 minutes is someone else’s 30 minutes (because we normal humans work on clock time, he works on ‘his time’). His disconnect with ‘time’ is also renowned as a major flaw in an otherwise fairly fabulously perfect human being.

“This should be interesting”, I thought. “He has NO idea how much washing 7 people create and how much TIME it takes to do it. Let go of your inner control freak. Let him fail. Let him SEE how hard it is. Let him mix up 5 kids clothes and have to wash uniforms at a moments notice sending kids to school in damp sports tops or put undies in wrong draws and have to match 200 pairs of socks on a Sunday night”

“Hooray” I thought, this will be my most satisfying victory ever.

After week 1 he said to me “I really appreciate how much you’ve done over the last 10 years” – #swoon.

I thought that may be a sign of weakness and that he wanted me to take over but no, he pushed on….

We are 4 weeks into the new ‘arrangement’. He hasn’t mentioned anything else since (clearly pride and a little bit of not showing any weakness is at stake here) BUT, you know what. He’s done it. He’s running a very successful business and managed to not only stay on top of the washing but it’s no longer spread out on sofa’s, bed and random places in the kitchen. He has a system, it’s well organized, and way better than anything I have ever implemented. ON Saturday he managed to wash 10+ loads, dry and put away over a week’s worth of clothes and mow the lawns….who does that? I’ve just walked into our laundry. Socks are paired and there’s no washing in sight. No shit. He’s a frigging legend.

I could get used to this! 6 months, no way – he’s got another 16 years before I take over again but I will NOT under any circumstances learn how to mow lawns or clean the pool.

Does your partner/hubby do some things better than you? What chores have you passed over to your better half?

4 comments

My husband is a typical dude, too: doesn’t see mess and works on his own time. When I leave for work in the morning I know that by the time I get back (4hours later) the house will be upside down… but I do have to say that when I do ask him to clean, the house is spotless. It was in his wedding vows that I would never have to clean the bathroom. I’m his princess and princesses don’t clean the bathroom 🙂 he’s also in charge of cooking dinner on the weekends and I fix dinner during the week… I have to say that I always look forward to his cooking turn because it’s always delicious 🙂

I’m like you – no bathroom cleaning here either. The Big Guy always said that as long as we can afford a cleaner, it’ll get me off his back! That said, he doesn’t/can’t cook…..hmmm….must start training.